Produced | Tiger Sniff Commercial, Consumer and Mobile Group
The author | Huang Qingchun
Titled | Oasis @ Li Ziqi
In the past two days, Li Ziqi, who has been suspended for more than three months, has become a frequent guest of Weibo hot searches, first # Li Ziqi Company sued Wei Nian # yesterday (October 26) rushed to the hot search, and then #Hangzhou Wei Nian applied for Li Ziqi trademark was completely rejected # Today (October 27) once again rushed to the hot search.
Since the release of the "Salt" video on July 14, the fairy and idyllic Li Ziqi has been forced to stop and disappear from the public eye for more than three months, and the outside world has never stopped speculating about its suspension. Unexpectedly, the rumors of the intensification of the contradiction between Hangzhou Weinian Brand Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Weinian, the MCN agency that operates Li Ziqi's IP) and Li Ziqi were finally made public in the form of court.
Tiger Sniff asked Wei Nian for verification, and the other party responded, "There is no formal response at the company level." ”
"Capital is really a good means"
According to the information of Tianyancha, on October 25, Sichuan Ziqi Cultural Communication Co., Ltd. added a new case filing information, and the defendant in the first instance was Liu Tongming, the person in charge of Hangzhou Weinian Brand Management Co., Ltd.
Through the shareholder information of these two companies, it can be found that Sichuan Ziqi Culture Communication Co., Ltd. is 51% owned by Hangzhou Weinian Brand Management Co., Ltd., Li Ziqi himself holds 49% of the shares, and Liu Tongming is the majority shareholder and actual controller of Weinian.
A lawyer explained to Deep Web that the lawsuit means that Li Ziqi still enjoys control over Ziqi Culture, which accounts for 49% of the shares, "Although Liu Tongming is the majority shareholder of Ziqi Culture, the lawsuit does not require the confirmation of the major shareholder, it is a company act, and the prosecutor can have the company's official seal." ”
Prior to this, on August 26, Li Ziqi's assistant sent two microblogs in a row, one reminding everyone not to be deceived by fraudulent text messages in the name of Li Ziqi, and said that they had reported it to the public security organs; the other responded to the matter of stopping the change, saying that Li Ziqi needed time to sort out practical problems and constantly learn. At that time, expressions such as "problems with third-party companies" and "practical problems" made netizens quickly associate with micro-thoughts.
On August 30, Li Ziqi rushed to the hot search because of an oasis dynamic, "call a police officer early in the morning", and attached a photo of himself in the police station. In the comments, she replied to netizens: "Capital is really a good means. It was then quickly deleted.
Later, informed sources revealed to the media that the reason why Oasis was chosen to publish content was "because the official account controller of li ziqi's weibo, douyin, Kuaishou, B station and other large platforms is not herself, but Hangzhou Weinian." It can be seen that li Ziqi's short eight words to reply to netizens may be the heartfelt words that have been in the gap between his cooperation with Wei Nian so far.
After Li Ziqi's assistant and himself publicly shouted, the rumors of Li Ziqi's break with Wei Nian also changed from the initial netizens' catching wind and shadows to a nail in the coffin.
In this regard, netizens are automatically divided into two camps, and the supporting party believes that "using people's names to make money, and not wanting to give people more money, which is itself very excessive"; the opposing side believes that "the world is bustling for profit, and not eating human fireworks is acted out." Moreover, without capital incubation, Li Ziqi is also an ordinary person, just like stars and brokerage companies, resources (capital) are the most important. ”
In fact, before signing the MCN company, Li Ziqi has accumulated a certain number of fans on the social platform, and the video content he created that is both pyrotechnic and creative is very recognizable - rain falling eaves, stove fire, hoe planing ginger, shilei jade's intention are amazing, and the beauty of each frame is different from the P map of the Internet celebrity, because the exquisite production does not interfere with the expression of real emotions, but on the contrary, it is effectively foiled and becomes a vital intention.
Moreover, Li Ziqi is by no means just a static symbol, planting vegetables, brewing wine, chopping firewood, making paper, making bamboo sofas, tying bamboo lampshades, embroidering Shudi mountains and rivers, she successfully sketched a picture of pastoral pastoral life in the spring ploughing and autumn harvest, satisfying the people in the downtown area for the landscape and field life.
The effort and sweat behind this, Li Ziqi has also shared on Weibo, for example, when filming the episode of "Lanzhou Beef Noodles", she admitted that she ran to learn from the ramen shop master and repeatedly practiced kneading noodles for more than a month. She said she shot more than 200 shots of ramen in that 2 minute video, and ended up using fewer than 50. During the three days of filming, she wasted 20 pounds of flour, and the discarded dough was made into bread and ate for half a month.
For example, in order to shoot a snow scene for tens of seconds, she had frozen on the snowy mountain for seven or eight hours without a team at that time, and her hands were unconscious, and she needed to adjust the camera position after covering the heat.
However, when content creators hitched a ride on capital, things gradually changed subtly.
Originally, Wei Nian and Li Ziqi were a good story of mutual achievement, and the fate of the two began on August 29, 2016, when Wei Nian Technology registered the trademark "Li Ziqi". On Weibo, Li Ziqi revealed that in September 2016, she received a private message from "Mr. L". "Mr. L" is considered by the media to be Liu Tongming.
According to Tianyancha data, on February 28, 2013, Liu Tongming founded Weinian, an MCN institution with a registered capital of 7.761 million yuan, which holds 20.44% of the company's shares.
The MCN agency's early business was mainly to incubate Internet celebrities, and its signed well-known Internet celebrities included Xiangxiang Spray Roast Chicken, Zhongni, popular blogger Kakaoo-, fashion blogger Wangwang, Fang Yuan, etc. who were once screenwriters of Wanhe Tianyi.
However, after Signing Li Ziqi, Wei Nian successively concentrated its resources on the operation of this IP. "Open Pineapple Finance" previously reported that "in the three office buildings of Wei Nian, one of the buildings is li ziqi business department" and "more than 500 people in the whole company serve li ziqi alone".
Although Sichuan Ziqi Cultural Communication Co., Ltd., which was jointly established by the two parties, weinian held 51% of the shares and Li Ziqi held 49% of the shares, but the number of insured people of the company showed that the number of insured people of the company was 0, while the number of insured people of weinian was 504. It is equivalent to saying that the staff who maintain the operation of the "Li Ziqi" IP basically belong to Hangzhou Weinian in the labor relationship, and the company in which Li Ziqi himself holds equity is more like an empty shell.
Back to Li Ziqi himself, although it is difficult to find his commercial ambitions in various interviews, his video works are still very restrained in commercial implantation, but pulling the time back to the beginning of 2018, Li Ziqi said in an interview with the "new list", "At first, the video was only to pull business for her own Taobao store, but later it was crooked, when she revealed that she signed a contract with mcN agency Wei Nian and set up a shooting team, and the registered company also got financing." ”
At that time, Li Ziqi admitted that he was not "indifferent to fame and fortune" like the video, "For a person who has slept in a bridge hole and once eaten a bag of instant noodles twice, only the bank card 'balance' can have enough security." ”
Therefore, when Li Ziqi's IP quickly became popular, the relationship between the two sides began to deteriorate because of the rapid expansion of this IP's ability to liquidate, and eventually reached an impasse.
According to media reports, the initial contract between the two parties showed that the beneficiary of Li Ziqi's IP brand should be Ziqi Culture, of which Li Ziqi personally accounted for 49% of the shares and WeiNian held 51%; but in actual development, the beneficiary of the Li Ziqi snail powder IP brand was Wei Nian, of which Li Ziqi held zero shares.
Image source: Finance Eleven
It is not difficult to find through the tianyan inspection that most of the "Li Ziqi" trademarks are held by Sichuan Ziqi Culture Communication Co., Ltd., while Hangzhou Weinian directly holds the snail powder jointly signed by Li Ziqi and the People's Daily, the lotus powder jointly named with the Forbidden City Ice Cellar, and the intellectual property rights related to Plum Ziqi's e-commerce products such as Li Ziqi beef sauce and plum Ziqi sausage packaging.
Dai Yueqiang, a lawyer at Beijing Ante Law Firm, said this means that the core intellectual property rights related to Li Ziqi's e-commerce business belong to the Weinian party, and most of the trademarks of the Li Ziqi brand belong to Sichuan Ziqi Culture Communication Co., Ltd., which has weak control over Li Ziqi. "If the company has relevant articles of association, then it is necessary to make decisions in accordance with the charter; if there is no charter, it is the major shareholder who has a veto power and makes the final decision, and the decision-making power is likely to belong to micro-ideas."
Under this premise, first of all, Li Ziqi himself cannot get benefits from the biggest beneficiary, Wei Nian.
In recent years, with the core IP of Li Ziqi, Wei Nian has successively introduced Huaying Capital, Sina Weibo, Mango Fund, and ByteDance, and the valuation has soared to nearly 5 billion yuan, and Li Ziqi cannot get a piece of the capital feast because he does not hold any shares in Wei Nian.
Secondly, Li Ziqi himself has a very limited income in the sales of online stores and factories under the "Li Ziqi" IP.
"China News Weekly" quoted data released by dolphin think tank to report that the sales of the "Plum Ziqi" brand reached 1.6 billion yuan in 2020, and the "Plum Ziqi" snail powder alone sold 500 million yuan in sales a year, and Li Ziqi could only get a specific revenue share because it was both the main body of the flagship store and the non-shareholder of the snail powder factory. In the "Deep Web" report, "Li Ziqi's share from Wei Nian in the past one or two years is only tens of millions of yuan." ”
In this regard, an investment circle person also told the "Deep Net", "At the beginning of the establishment of Ziqi Culture, according to the contract between Li Ziqi and Wei Nian, the main body and all rights and interests of the original Li Ziqi brand IP development and operation were placed under Ziqi Culture - but in the initial stage of business development, for various reasons, the two sides decided that the registration and operation of Li Ziqi's IP brand e-commerce channels were carried out through Wei Nian, the main body of the company, and agreed on a specific revenue sharing ratio, which laid the groundwork for the subsequent outbreak of contradictions. ”
It is equivalent to saying that the fate of the two sides to break up was actually predestined when the contract was first signed.
A lose-lose "farce"?
Since the shooting of short videos in 2016, Li Ziqi, who has tens of millions of fans, has long been more than just a "phenomenon-level Internet celebrity", and the reason why the contradiction between it and Wei Nian has repeatedly aroused public opinion is largely due to the far-reaching impact of Li Ziqi's top IP on social platforms at home and abroad.
Looking at China, even the top anchors such as Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya are difficult to compare with Li Ziqi in terms of global influence and vitality - this post-90s Sichuan girl has won more than 15 million subscribers on YouTube with more than 100 short videos, just like the export spokesperson of Traditional Chinese farming civilization.
Even foreign netizens rarely and unanimously blow "rainbow fart" under the video - "it's crazy, how did she do it", "She is so beautiful and talented, she is the princess I imagined", "Is the Chinese countryside a fairyland", "She is a god, those hands restore the lost creativity of mankind", in their eyes, Li Ziqi not only poetized rural life, but also changed the stereotype of Chinese rural life abroad for a long time.
As a result, domestic social media from the melon-eating masses, self-media to corporate blue V, and official media have set off a huge debate around "whether Li Ziqi can represent cultural output".
Nowadays, it is really regrettable to see this top IP that carries the burden of "cultural output".
In this regard, an MCN person in charge analyzed in an interview with Tiger Sniff, "Li Ziqi and Wei Nian have quarreled in court, which has become a lose-lose farce, because in such a tense situation, the two sides will have a good deal to distribute interests, and the possibility of easing the relationship afterwards is unlikely." ”
Once Li Ziqi and Wei Nian "break up", it is likely to be a lose-lose situation - for Li Ziqi himself, it is possible to completely lose the operation rights of all platform accounts of the "Li Ziqi" IP, including tens of millions of fan accounts, trademarks and sub-brands with strong gold absorption ability, and online stores; and for Wei Nian, even if it finally obtains the ownership of all platform "Li Ziqi" accounts and loses the soul figure such as Li Ziqi, this top IP is likely to decline.
Moreover, when talking about the more far-reaching impact of this matter on both sides, the above-mentioned MCN head said that Wei Nian may be more affected:
"Li Ziqi herself laid the groundwork for her passivity at the beginning of the cooperation, but now the rupture obviously has a greater impact on micro-ideas, first of all, whether fans or video viewers are actually looking forward to Li Ziqi herself, this IP is very strongly bound to her, but the weak commercial binding has led to problems in the distribution of benefits;
Secondly, it is not excluded that Li Ziqi started another stove, for example, after Zhu and Zhang Ce were separated, Zhang Ce's current development is not worse than Zhu Once, in this era, whether the platform or fans are more recognized as creative ability, that is to say, after the loss of Li Ziqi, this top IP will also become a rootless tree, which is difficult to last. ”
In his view, this was originally a beautiful talk of mutual achievement, but in the end it was reduced to a lose-lose "farce" because of the distribution of benefits.
In fact, for video creators, fans, capital, tracks, and timing are all important, but money is often the biggest variable. The relationship between many MCNs and creators has also become more delicate, and the contradictions and disputes between the two sides have also been frequently exposed in the public eye.
Taking the two more famous incidents as an example, in 2019, the B station top 100 Up main Xiangxiang battle, because of the dispute with the company's "shock culture", Weibo and Douyin accounts were frozen, And the Weibo content was emptied; Lin Chen, the owner of the B station Up, once said in the video that his company never provided content operation and remuneration support, and when he wanted to terminate the contract, he was also claimed for 3 million.
In view of this, a lawyer friend told Tiger Sniff, "As a personal brand with wide popularity and goodwill value, the creator himself lacks control over the overall brand, which seems somewhat unfair." However, since the two parties have chosen to solve the problem through litigation, the contribution of Li Ziqi and Weinian to the brand can only wait for the legal ruling. ”
Previously, Wang Xindi, the owner of B station and former MCN employee, summed up three common "pits" of MCN in a video: first, promised to provide resources before signing the contract, and did not honor after signing; second, the provisions involving the rights of bloggers and the obligations of the company in the contract were vague, and the consequences of the blogger's breach of contract were very clear; third, when the blogger signed the contract, he threw out the successful case of the company's number making, but did not talk about what the company did, whether the blogger became popular on his own or on the company, causing misleading.
In this regard, the above-mentioned lawyer friend said, "Creators are mostly business-oriented talents, and they obviously do not have the experience of MCN in investment cooperation, so there will inevitably be information asymmetry between the two parties when signing contracts." How to avoid the resulting disputes has long become a lesson that the creator group must make up, and the contradiction between Li Ziqi and Wei Nian has once again sounded the alarm bell for everyone. ”
In addition, he shared two pieces of advice for the content creator community:
"First, when the content creator introduces investors, he must hire a lawyer as a consultant, sign all the agreements should be reviewed by the lawyer, subject to the explanation of your lawyer, do not believe that the MCN and the investor's lawyer fooled you;
Second, when signing any cooperation agreement, mcN, investors and you make any verbal commitments, the easiest way is to write it down, let everyone sign, leave evidence, if you are willing to pay for a lawyer at this stage to make various supplementary agreements and terminate the agreement, of course, it is best. ”
#我是虎嗅商业, Huang Qingchun, deputy leader of the consumption and mobility group, pays attention to many fields such as entertainment and social networking, games, audio and video, and the exchange of industry insiders plus WeChat: 724051399, news clues can also be emailed to [email protected].
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